WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nielsen SoundScan, the entertainment industry's data information system
that tracks point-of-purchase sales of recorded music product, Nielsen
BDS, the music industry’s leading music performance monitoring service,
and Nielsen RingScan, which tracks mobile ringtone purchases, have
announced their 2008 U.S. year-end sales and performance monitoring data
for the 52-week period December 31, 2007 through December 28, 2008.

OVERALL MUSIC SALES
(12/31/07 – 12/28/08)

OVERALL ALBUM SALES
(12/31/07 – 12/28/08)

(ALBUMS, SINGLES, MUSIC VIDEO, DIGITAL TRACKS – IN MILLIONS)

(INCLUDES ALL ALBUMS & TRACK EQUIVALENT ALBUMS - IN MILLIONS)

UNITS SOLD

2008

2007

% Chg.

UNITS SOLD

2008

2007

% Chg.

1,513*

1,369

10.5%

535.4

584.9

-8.5%

TOTAL ALBUM SALES
(12/31/07 – 12/28/08)

INTERNET ALBUM SALES
(12/31/07 – 12/28/08)

(INCLUDES CD, CS, LP, DIGITAL ALBUMS - IN MILLIONS)

(PHYSICAL ALBUM PURCHASES VIA E-COMMERCE SITES, IN MILLIONS)

UNITS SOLD

2008

2007

% Chg.

UNITS SOLD

2008

2007

% Chg.

428.4

500.5

-14%

27.5

30.1

-8.6%

DIGITAL TRACK SALES

DIGITAL ALBUM SALES

(12/31/2007 – 12/28/08 - IN MILLIONS)

(12/31/2007 – 12/28/2008 - IN MILLIONS)

UNITS SOLD

2008

2007

% CHG.

UNITS SOLD

2008

2007

% CHG.

1,070*

844.2

27%

65.8*

50.0

32%

TOTAL LP ALBUM SALES
(12/31/07 – 12/28/08)

HOLIDAY SEASON ALBUM SALES
(11/17/08 – 12/28/08)

(LP/VINYL ALBUMS - IN MILLIONS)

(Physical & Digital ALBUM SALES DURING HOLIDAY SEASON: IN MILLIONS)

UNITS SOLD

2008

2007

% Chg.

UNITS SOLD

2008

2007

% Chg.

1.88*

.99

89%

80.1

98.7

-19%

*Denotes a Nielsen SoundScan sales record

2008 GENRE ALBUM SALES REPORT

(12/31/07-12/28/08 – IN THOUSANDS)

CURRENT VS. CATALOG ALBUM SALES

(12/31/07-12/28/08 - IN MILLIONS)

Genre

2008

2007

% Chg.

Overall Albums

2008

2007

% Chg.

Alternative

80,919

88,604

-8.7%

Current

249.6

306.4

- 19%

Christian/Gospel+

29,793

34,017

-12.4%

Catalog

178.8

194.1

- 8%

Classical

13,323

18,044

-26.0%

Deep Catalog

128.9

138.7

- 7%

Country

47,657

62,696

-24.0%

Jazz

11,791

14,047

-16.1%

Physical Albums:

2008

2007

% Chg.

Latin

25,125

31,853

-21.1%

Current

215.3

279.3

- 23%

Metal

50,476

52,951

-4.7%

Catalog

147.3

171.2

-14%

New Age

2,943

3,210

-8.3%

Deep Catalog

106.2

122.7

-13%

R&B

77,014

95,555

-19.4%

Rap

33,410

41,662

-19.8%

Digital Albums:

2008

2007

% Chg.

Rock

139,666

149,414

-6.5%

Current

34.3

27.1

27%

Soundtrack

20,847

24,570

-15.2%

Catalog

31.5

22.9

37%

Deep Catalog

22.7

16.0

41%

(Note: Titles may appear in more than one genre.)

+Sales figures tracked by Christian SoundScan

2008 YEAR-TO-DATE RECORD COMPANY MARKET SHARE (12/31/07 -
12/28/08)

(reflects the market share for the entire entity including
sub-distributed companies)

Music sales exceeded 65 million in the final week of 2008,
representing the biggest sales week in the history of Nielsen
SoundScan. The previous record was Christmas week 2007 with 58.4
million music purchases.

Metallica’s “Death Magnetic” is the best selling Internet album for
the year with 144,000 sales.

During 2008, more Vinyl Albums were purchased (1.88 million) than any
other year in the history of Nielsen SoundScan. The previous
record was in 2000, with 1.5 million LP album sales.

Note that more than 2 out of every 3 vinyl albums were purchased
at an independent music store during the year.

Digital Factoids:

Digital Track sales break the 1 BILLION sales mark for the
first time with more than 1,070,000 digital track sales. The previous
record was 844 million digital track purchases during 2007; an
increase of 27% over 2007.

Digital Album sales reached an all-time high with more than 65 million
sales in 2008; up from 50 million in 2007; an increase of 32% over the
previous year.

Note that digital album sales account for 15% of total album sales
compared to 10% in 2007 and 5.5% in 2006.

In the final reporting week of 2008 the following digital sales
records were broken:

Digital Album sales this week broke the two million mark for the
first time with sales of 2.4 million sales; breaking the previous
record of 1.9 million (12/30/07).

The top 200 digital songs for the week posted an all-time high
with 13.6 million sales; breaking the previous record of 11.9
million during the last week of 2007.

The first time that the Top 5 digital songs (combining all
versions of the same song) sold more than 300,000 downloads in a
week with Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” selling 419,000. The record for
most downloads for a digital song in one week continues to be Flo
Rida’s “Low” with sales of 467,000 set during the last week of
2007.

2008 is the first time a digital song broke the 3 million sales mark
in a single year. There were 2 songs that achieved this milestone;
Leona Lewis’ “Bleeding Love” and Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop;” with sales of
3.4 and 3.2 million respectively.

In 2008, there are 19 different digital songs with sales that exceeded
2 million compared to 9 in 2007.

71 Digital Songs exceed the 1 million sales mark for the year compared
to 41 digital songs in 2007, 22 in 2006, and only 2 digital songs in
2005.

Rihanna is the biggest selling digital artist in 2008 with nearly 10
million track sales compared to Fergie in 2007 who had 7.5 million
track sales.

There are more than 450,000 different physical albums that sold at
least one copy over the Internet during 2008 compared to 390,000 in
2007.

Best Seller Factoids:

Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III is
the biggest selling album of the year with 2.8 million sales.

Taylor Swift is the biggest selling solo artist, with sales greater
than 4.0 million albums and AC/DC is the biggest selling group in 2008
with sales of 3.4 million.

Taylor Swift stands at the top of the list, marking the 2nd
time in the last three years that a country artist is the top
selling artist for the year. Rascal Flatts was the biggest selling
artist in 2006 with 5 million sales. Josh Groban took the honors
last year (2007) with 4.8 million sales.

Taylor Swift’s Fearless and her
self-titled album finished the year at #3 and #6 respectively with
sales of 2.1 and 1.5 million. This is the first time in the history of
Nielsen SoundScan one artist had two different albums in the Top 10 on
the year end album chart

Holiday Season Factoids: (last 6
weeks of year).

Overall Album sales during the 2008 holiday season were down 19%
compared to 2007, with sales of just over 80 million.

Album sales during the holiday season accounted for 19% of all album
sales for the year.

Digital Album sales during the holiday season experienced significant
growth over 2007 with an increase of 37% to 9.9 million sales.

Strata Factoids:

Album sales at Non-Traditional music outlets (digital, internet, mail
order, venue, non-traditional retailers) hit an all-time high in 2008
with sales breaking the 100 million mark for the first time.
Non-Traditional is the only strata that experienced album growth over
the previous year; with an increase of 15% over 2007.

Non-traditional outlets account for nearly 25% of all album sales,
compared to 18% in 2007, 12% in 2006, 9% in 2005 and 5% in 2004
(4% in 2003).

Digital services account for 65% of the Non-Traditional album
sales.

The last two weeks of the year produced the two biggest album sales
weeks for Non-Traditional outlets; 3.3 and 3.2 million sales.

The percentage of album sales at mass merchants declined for the
second straight year after experiencing year over year growth from
2002 – 2006. In 2008, 37% of all albums purchased were at a
Mass Merchant outlet compared to 40% in 2007, 41% in 2006, 40% in 2005.

Chain music stores account for 33% of all album sales in 2008;
compared to 36% in 2007; 41% in 2006, 45% in 2005 and 48% in 2004.

Album sales at Independent music stores account for 7% of all album
sales; up 1 point from a year ago (6% in 2007 and 2006, 7% in 2005 and
9% in 2004).

Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems (Nielsen BDS), the music
industry’s leading music performance monitoring service, has announced
the most played songs at radio, at video, as well as Internet music
streams for 2008.

Nielsen BDS: Top 10 Most Played
Songs

Nielsen BDS: 2008 Top 10 Artist
Airplay

Title/Artist

Detections

Artist

Detections

1

Bleeding Love/ Leona Lewis

468,000

1

Rihanna

889,000

2

Low/ Flo Rida Feat. T-Pain

410,000

2

Rascal Flatts

827,000

3

Love Song/ Sara Bareilles

398,000

3

Toby Keith

826,000

4

Apologize/ Timbaland feat.
OneRepublic

383,000

4

Chris Brown

818,000

5

With You/ Chris Brown

369,000

5

George Strait

777,000

6

No Air/ Jordin Sparks Duet
w/ Chris Brown

365,000

6

Tim McGraw

776,000

7

Love In This Club/ Usher
feat. Young Jeezy

364,000

7

Alicia Keys

771,000

8

No One/ Alicia Keys

362,000

8

Taylor Swift

746,000

9

Lollipop/ Lil Wayne feat.
Static Major

342,000

9

Alan Jackson

741,000

10.

Sexy Can I/ Ray J & Yung Berg

341,000

10.

Daughtry

734,000

Nielsen BDS: Top 10 Music Video Internet Streams

Nielsen BDS: Top 10 Internet Streamed Songs

Title/Artist

Streams

Title/Artist

Streams

1

Touch My Body/ Mariah Carey

7,399,000

1

Bleeding Love/ Leona Lewis

10,699,000

2

Don’t Stop The Music/ Rihanna

7,337,000

2

Love Song/ Sara Bareilles

10,558,000

3

No One/ Alicia Keys

6,290,000

3

Low/ Flo Rida Feat. T-Pain

9,837,000

4

Bleeding Love/ Leona Lewis

5,750,000

4

No One/ Alicia Keys

9,680,000

5

Lollipop/ Lil Wayne feat.
Static Major

4,924,000

5

With You/ Chris Brown

8,971,000

6

Apologize/ Timbaland feat.
OneRepublic

4,469,000

6

Sorry/ Buckcherry

8,940,000

7

Piece of Me/ Britney Spears

4,385,000

7

Love In This Club/ Usher
feat. Young Jeezy

8,892,000

8

No Air/ Jordin Sparks Duet
w/ Chris Brown

4,348,000

8

Touch My Body/ Mariah Carey

8,675,000

9

With You/ Chris Brown

4,121,000

9

No Air/ Jordin Sparks Duet
w/ Chris Brown

8,160,000

10.

Tattoo/ Jordin Sparks

4,086,000

10.

Stop and Stare/ OneRepublic

8,004,000

Nielsen RingScan has announced the Top Selling Mastertones and
Polyphonic ringtones for 2008.

Nielsen RingScan: Top 10
Mastertones

(12/31/2007-12/28/2008)

Nielsen RingScan: Top 10
Polyphonic Ringtones

(12/31/2007-12/28/2008)

Title/Artist

Sales

Title/Artist

Sales

1

Lollipop/ Lil Wayne

2,365,000

1

Adios Amor Te Vas/ Grupo
Montez De

85,000

2

Whatever You Like/ T.I.

1,627,000

2

Super Mario Bros./ Koji
Kondo

68,000

3

Low/ Flo Rida

1,607,000

3

Pink Panther/ Henry Mancini

64,000

4

I Kissed A Girl/ Katy Perry

1,138,000

4

Candy Shop/ 50 Cent

53,000

5

Love In This Club/ Usher
feat. Young Jeezy

1,013,000

5

Because I Got High/ Afroman

52,000

6

Bleeding Love/ Leona Lewis

922,000

6

Crank Dat Soulja Boy/ Soulja
Boy

47,000

7

With You/ Chris Brown

892,000

7

Rockstar/ Nickelback

40,000

8

Bust It Baby/ Plies

891,000

8

Best Friend/ 50 Cent

39,000

9

Sexy Can I/ Ray J

852,000

9

I Ain’t Mad At Cha/ 2Pac

36,000

10.

Take A Bow/ Rihanna

844,000

10.

Bed/ J Holiday

35,000

Nielsen RingScan Factoids:

During the last week of the year (Christmas week), ringtone purchases
increased by 15% over the previous week (consistent with sales spike
during the last week of 2007 and 2006).

Mastertone purchases account for 95% of all ringtone sales in 2008; up
from 91% in 2007.

The top 100 Mastertone ringers sold 43.8 million, accounting for 26%
of all ringtone sales for the year; down from 30% in 2007.